I’ve been thinking about political correctness lately. A lot. And in this context: When, as a civilization, we finally understand that abortion is a violation of human rights, what will we call unborn children?
You know what I mean. There are many things we don’t call people anymore. If you’ve watched The Wizard of Oz lately, you’ve likely had to shield your child’s eyes as the credits rolled. Do you know how they referred to those actors who played the Munchkins?
I think fetus will be the new F-word. I also think I have too much time on my hands.
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Rebecca adds: Claude Lantzmann’s Shoah, a very long documentary about the Holocaust that included many interviews with perpetrators (not all of whom knew they were being filmed) contains many fascinating and frightening insights. One of the smaller, but telling, details is that the workers in death camps referred to their victims as figuren – my professor translated that as “mannequins” or “dolls”. It conveys the physical shape of a person, but ascribes no value, soul, or life to it. For all but the most evil Nazis, this sort of reification of humans was necessary if they were to carry out their grim tasks.
Unborn children don’t even get the courtesy of an acknowledgment of their basic nature. They’re called “products of conception,” or “a cluster of cells,” the latter as apt a description of a tumour, or an unsightly mole, and by implication something to be disposed of as readily as a tumour or mole. I don’t think “fetus” is necessarily problematic – my doctor calls it a “patella” even though almost everyone thinks of it as a “kneecap” – but there’s no question the word is often used to achieve distance. How about even referring to them as “human fetuses”? A fetus is a developing life; we use the same word for all mammals in utero. I’d settle for that small step towards taking an honest look at what it is that is being destroyed in an abortion.
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Andrea adds: I have heard someone else use the terms “embryonic child”, “fetal child”, etc. which I like. It’s scientific, accurate and personable–allows us to consider that’s how we all began… we’re all people in different stages of life. We evolve, so to speak.
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I like human fetuses or unborn baby. It is interesting that most people refer to fetuses as babies already, even radical activist pro-choicers if they are in casual conversation about an acquaintance’s pregancy. Usually the only time pro-abortion types use the term ‘child’ is when using the phrase ‘unwanted child’.
Rebecca, I have been thinking a lot about the Nazi comparisons lately, in light of Obama’s plans to use taxpayer dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research. The ensuing debate accuses those against treating human life in this manner as being anti-science. Didn’t Nazi doctors rationalize their gruesome scientific experiments in the same manner – as furthering scientific discovery? Jewish people were quite rationally explained away as not real people – much as the unborn are.
Given that major news outlets report that “men” are pregnant and can give birth, language and meaning are pretty much screwed in our society already. Perhaps the fine ladies of PWPL should pontificate on whether men now have the right to an abortion to cause a few feminist heads to explode?
I touch on that issue here [http://www.prowomanprolife.org/2009/03/13/back-to-kidneys-for-a-moment/]. The entire documentary, The Deadly Experiment, is worth watching. Here are just a couple of snippets I found eerily relevant to embryonic stem cell research:
“I think that was the basic idea; that these are worthless persons and we may use them for experiments.”
“[The doctors] maintained that they did this to prevent disease, that they did this for the betterment of mankind. I tend to think, at least in part, that they did it to advance their careers.”